Women's basketball releases 2015-16 schedule

Women’s basketball releases 2015-16 schedule

Ben Gartland • September 20, 2015

Womens’ basketball coach Doug Bruno stands on the sidelines of a game last season. Photo courtesy of DePaul. — Womens’ basketball coach Doug Bruno stands on the sidelines of a game last season. Photo courtesy of DePaul Athletics.

DePaul women’s basketball announced their full schedule concurrently with the Big East, announcing their conference schedule Thursday, releasing dates, times and a tv schedule after the Blue Demons’ opponents were announced over the summer.

DePaul announced that they will have two exhbitions games to start the year, the first against St. Xavier on Nov. 2 and then against Lewis on Nov. 7. Both games will be at McGrath-Phillips Arena. They then will open the season with the preseason Women’s National Invitational Tournament, where they will open against Southern Illinois. In the quarterfinals, they will either play St. Bonaventure or Siena, then their opponents for the third and fourth rounds are to be determined. The first two games will be at McGrath-Phillips Arena. Following the WNIT, DePaul will host four straight non-conference games, highlighted by defending NCAA champion Connecticut.

After that is a four-game road trip, where DePaul will face the team that ended their 2014-15 season at Notre Dame on Dec. 9. DePaul hosted the Fighting Irish last December and lost in overtime.

The game after will be a trip to Texas A&M on Dec. 12 in another game that DePaul came close to winning in 2014-15. They played close to the Aggies in their season opener but could not close the deal. They end the road trip with a cross-town matchup with Northwestern.

Big East conference play will start for the Blue Demons on Dec. 29 when they host Marquette. They have a road trip to the New York area as they take on St. John’s on Jan. 3 and then Seton Hall on Jan. 5. There will be no four-game road trip in conference play for DePaul like there was in 2014-15.

Their biggest stretch of home games will come at the end of January when they host Creighton, Providence, Seton Hall and St. John’s all in a row between Jan. 22 and Jan. 31.

The end of the season could be tough for DePaul as they end with three straight road games at Providence, Creighton and Marquette. Following that will be the Big East tournament, to be held at McGrath-Phillips Arena and, if they qualify, a postseason tournament.

DePaul won the Big East regular season and tournament the past two seasons and made it past the first round of the NCAA tournament in both of those seasons. 2013-14 was the first time they had won the Big East tournament.